


A Cruel Twist of Fate

by Mimozka



Series: The Sara Diggle Chronicles [4]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Angst, Arrow Season 5 spoilers, Family, Future Fic, Gen, Loss, Spoilers for The Flash 3x02, aka The Trash, and if you've been following the dctv you know what this "character death" warning is about, more cannonical erasure, not exactly a death, there will be tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 02:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8268652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimozka/pseuds/Mimozka
Summary: Prompt: sara diggle finding out there was a timeline where she doesn't exist but that her 'brother' does and her realising that she will never meet her own brother.





	

**Author's Note:**

> In light of recent news (aka that there will be no more Sara Diggle) I am flipping this prompt to John Jr. finds out he has a sister that he’ll never meet.

In light of recent news (aka that there will be no more Sara Diggle) I am flipping this prompt to John Jr. finds out he has a sister that he’ll never meet.

Don’t go calling me Satan for this. You asked for it.

* * *

Johnny didn’t know why his parents got all stiff, cold and distant whenever the Central City crew came to visit. Although, on closer inspection he noticed it was only one person they seem to have a problem with. They are perfectly nice to Caitlin, Iris, Cisco and Wally. 

Yet, when it came to Barry Allen they kept their distance. They left the room whenever he entered, or if it was something related to their “night jobs” then they kept the greatest distance they could from him. Didn’t speak to him unless it was absolutely critical.

The thing was, things have been like this between them for as long as Johnny could remember. He didn’t really pay attention to them when he was younger, because they were adults and he was a kid and well… he didn’t really care. He noticed, but he didn’t really care about it to ask.

He wasn’t a kid anymore though. He was almost an adult, he had his own driving licence and the tension between them was too noticeable. It struck him as very odd, because his parents were pretty easygoing people. Unless you got on their bad side. 

So John did what any person he knew would do when they needed information: He went to see aunt Felicity. He went to visit her at Smoak Industries and even sweet-talked her assistant to let him in without an appointment with a cup of his favourite coffee and a warm danish. 

To his greatest disappointment though, seeing aunt Felicity yielded no results. She definitely knew what it was all about, judging by the way her face fell and she couldn’t seem to look Johnny in the eye. But she wouldn’t tell him anything, claiming that this was something between Barry and his parents and that it was not her secret to tell.

 Johnny did try asking his parents about it later that night, after dinner, but was very quickly told that there is nothing to talk about. He let it drop after that.

That is, until one Thursday afternoon he was on his way to see Miriam because she was going to help him with studying for his math final (no matter that the kid was 4 years younger than him, she was Aunt Felicity’s kid and that made all the difference). Only he never made it as far as her room. 

The door to Uncle Oliver’s study was left just barely opened but it was enough for Johnny to be able to hear his dad and uncle talking (and disagreeing from the sound of things). His mother would tear him a new one if she ever found him eavesdropping, but he heard uncle Oliver mentioning Barry Allen and curiosity got the better of him:

_“John, you will need to work with Barry on this.”  
_

_“I don’t care, Oliver, I can’t. Find someone else.”  
_

_“There is no someone else, Digg. You’re our only shot at this and you know it. I just… I need to know that you’ll be able to handle it.”  
_

_“Send Curtis, he’s a genius.”  
_

_“He’s not a soldier. Not like you.”  
_

_“I can barely stand to look at him Oliver, and you want me to go piggybacking to the other side of the world with him? - No,”  
_

_“John.”  
_

_“No, Oliver. I don’t care how long it’s been, I don’t care that I don’t know Sara in this timeline, I don’t care about how sorry he is or has been. What he did cost me my daughter. Lyla and I have to live the rest of our lives with this ‘what if’ over our heads…”  
_

_“…”  
_

_“If Sara was my daughter in one timeline, then that makes her my daughter in all the timelines. It hurts no less than it would hurt losing Johnny. So I’ll repeat myslef: find someone else. Ask Kara to help.”_

_“John I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to-”  
_

_“I know, I know. Just… Before you ask me something like that again, stop and feel how would you feel if Miri was taken from you and you were given a Tommy instead. Would it matter to you that you didn’t remember her?”  
_

_“… No.”  
_

_“Didn’t think so.”_

Johnny stumbled backwards until he collided with the opposite wall. His knees were shaking and his heart was currently trying to beat its way out of his ribcage.

He had a _sister?_

Johnny’s whole existence was a mistake? A fluke? His parents were never supposed to have him? He was just a replacement for _Sara Diggle_?

He must have gotten to Miriam’s room because he vaguely heard a startled cry over the loud ringing in his ears. Miri asked him something but he couldn’t hear her. He couldn’t hear, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t even breathe.

He just let the blackness pull him under without a fight.

He woke up to a bright white ceiling and a rhythmic beeping. Once the drowsiness left him and he could actually focus his eyes on something he realized he’s in a hospital and that the beeping sound was his heart beat.

He felt a weight on both sides of his bed and looked to see his mother on one side and his father on another.  They were both asleep, but each had a hand clutching at his knee. They looked like hell.

He didn’t know what time it is but from what little he could see through the window he sees that the sky was dark. Night time. 

The events of the day came back to him as he lied there motionless, not wanting to wake his parents.

He mulled over everything he heard and everything he thought and felt. 

Eventually, noticing the dried tear tracks on his father’s cheeks and the smudged make up on his mother face he decided that it didn’t matter. Whatever happened to make his existence a reality didn’t matter. It was not important if he was a fluke of the universe. Because these two people at the foot of his bed loves him. He was as sure of it as he was sure the sun set in the west. They loved him just as much as they’d loved his sister. So he would love them back. He would do everything in his power to fill that hole in their hearts to the best of his ability. He would never be able to fill it, because he was John and she was Sara, but he hoped to at least make the edges less jagged.

He looked up to the ceiling again in an old age gesture of prayer and murmured:

“I’m sorry it had to be this way, Sara, I’m sorry you had to go for me to be here. But I promise I’ll take care of them, I’ll love them. I’ll make you proud, sis.”


End file.
